The primary goal of this site is to provide mature, meaningful discussion about the Vancouver Canucks. However, we all need a break some time so this forum is basically for anything off-topic, off the wall, or to just get something off your chest! This forum is named after poster Creeper, who passed away in July of 2011 and was a long time member of the Canucks message board community.

At least we'll have answer to the debate by the end of the year....(and then what will we debate about? )

Atom smasher closing in on 'Big Bang' energy level

GRENOBLE, France — Physicists expect the world's largest atom smasher to find a long-sought theoretical new particle -- or rule out that it exists -- by the end of 2012.

Rolf Heuer, director of the European particle physics laboratory near Geneva, predicted Monday that "toward the end of next year, you will have an answer."

He told reporters at a major physics conference that new research at the $10 billion collider under the Swiss-French border has helped pinpoint the precise level of high energy where the new particle is expected to be found.

The Higgs boson isn't just any particle.

It's the linchpin of the standard model of particle physics that explains the Big Bang theory, and is believed to give mass to other other objects and creatures in the Universe.

December 21st 2012?!

There is no such thing as climate change...there is no such thing as climate change...there is such thing as climate change...

Arachnid wrote:At least we'll have answer to the debate by the end of the year....December 21st 2012?!

Great news either way. Either they find this Goddamned God Particle, Standard Model confirmed, Nobel prizes all around, science advances.

Or else they definitively don't (or find something they didn't expect. The WTF Particle!) Twenty years' worth of papers and PhDs go out the window, Standard Model collapses like the rickety house of cards it is, bunch of people have red faces for a while, someone eventually comes up with some totally new physics, science advances.

I actually prefer the second scenario, it's more amusing. Especially given the ensuing moaning and bitching about changing the parameters from people who don't have the first clue how the scientific process works. Either way, irrefutable crackpot theories and one-man crusades continue to spring up at the usual rate. Science advances.